 "Photo: Glenn Connelly / Assistant Photo Editor")
 "Photo: Glenn Connelly / Assistant Photo Editor")
 "Photo: Glenn Connelly / Assistant Photo Editor")
 "Photo: Glenn Connelly / Assistant Photo Editor")
 "Photo: Glenn Connelly / Assistant Photo Editor")
A Hall of Famer and a 15-year pitching coach are behind closed doors, arguing about a player. The pitching coach wants him bad. The player’s ceiling is tremendously high, and the coach is sure the San Diego State baseball team should go after him.
But the Hall of Famer isn’t buying it. Because just a few weeks before, he had seen what the player could do, and he wasn’t impressed.
The breaking ball was “loopy” the day the Hall of Famer watched the player, and the heater wasn’t that hot. The four-seam fastball ran a modest 91 miles per hour and the player’s work ethic was questionable. The Hall of Famer had seen it before.
“Typical high school stuff,” said Tony Gwynn, the Hall of Fame outfielder. “When you’re going out and looking at high school guys, you see a lot of guys like that.”
The player was Stephen Strasburg, a senior pitcher for West Hills High School in Santee. He was 6 foot 3 inches and had a physique that matched the scouting reports’ description of his character: Soft. If Gwynn, the head coach of San Diego State's baseball team, had been a professional scout that day, his report would have said the same thing.
But SDSU's pitching coach, Rusty Filter, wouldn’t give up. He argued until the Hall of Famer couldn’t argue anymore, and Gwynn gave in. Strasburg would become an Aztec.
In no time, Filter looked dead wrong. On his first day with SDSU, Strasburg, now considered the best pitcher in NCAA Division I baseball, was tired and throwing up.
He was a waste of a DI scholarship.
Rusty Filter has coached for 16 seasons at SDSU. He’s had rotations finish in the top 25 in the nation in earned run average and he’s helped 48 pitchers get to the Majors. He’s seen nearly everything there is to see.
So Filter knew what he was getting when it came to Strasburg. Where other scouts saw a decent Division I prospect, Filter saw a load of untapped potential.
The first time Filter watched Strasburg, the teenager punched out 10 batters in four innings, showing the stuff of a future ace.
“He had a bigger body and he was strong,” Filter said. “He was very good in high school, even though he didn’t throw as hard as he does now.”
A few months later, Strasburg was pitching for the San Diego Show, a top-tier summer baseball team for high school athletes. That’s when Filter did most of his Strasburg scouting. That’s when he saw an upper 80s fastball, a sharp breaking ball and a durable body. And that’s when Filter knew he had to have him.
The only problem: Gwynn didn’t feel the same way. He, like many of the scouts, had too many issues with Strasburg’s character and makeup.
“He’s a hard guy to sell anybody on,” Filter said of Gwynn. “We have to come back with pretty significant reasons as to why we want them.”
Filter’s reasons were simple: Strasburg was athletic. He had a GPA high enough to have Ivy Leaguers foaming at the mouth. He was tall, and with the right conditioning, could be something special.
“I made a comment that he might throw exceptionally hard one day,” Filter said. “But I never thought that he would throw 100 mph.”
Nobody did. Not even Strasburg.
Several months before Gwynn and Filter had their argument, Stephen Strasburg is going through a serious growth spurt. He’s a few months shy of his high school senior season, and he’s yet to draw much collegiate attention.
It’s a 2-inch, 30-pound growth spurt, and it has Strasburg worried. He’s used to eating whatever he wants and not gaining a pound, and he doesn’t like to condition and he hates the weight room. But now he’s getting flabby.
While he might not know it at this time, the spurt will give him his best tool: Size.
Fast forward a few months: Strasburg is just starting his senior season at West Hills High. He’s 6 foot 3 inches and, because of his new frame, his fastball is slicing through local high schoolers.
He wins nearly every one of his starts. He strikes guys out at more than a K per inning rate and he’s got a sub-2.00 ERA. Scouts take notice.
A few months later, near May 2006, he’s a Division I prospect, but there are questions surrounding his makeup. Coaches wonder about his maturity.
“A lot of people in high school doubted me,” Strasburg said. “They thought I was capable of playing at the Division I level but they still weren’t completely sold.”
There is one man who’s sold, however: Rusty Filter.
Strasburg sits down with Filter, and the pitching coach is blunt. He needs to know Strasburg’s maturity level is there. The player reassures the pitching coach and Filter makes him an offer.
In the Fall of 2006, Strasburg is a freshman at SDSU. He is gassed. Gwynn was right. The kid didn’t have what it takes. But Strasburg isn’t quitting. Even if he wanted to, his teammates won’t let him.
“We had some good leadership in Bruce Billings, Lance Sewell and Mike Koons,” Strasburg said. “Those guys really showed me what it meant to be a leader. Not just a vocal leader, but to lead by example.”
Strasburg throws up nearly every day of practice and is shedding pounds. Gwynn notices.
“After the conditioning part had gotten into full swing he just started dropping weight like it was nothing,” Gwynn said. “His body had started to shape into that of what you would call a dominating-type pitcher.”
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